here's what I like to believe happened to the characters in the years following:

*to preface, venus was supposed to have a brother in this book, but I scratched the story line. he was drafted before she moved & after her father came out— she resented him because he never accepted their father for who he was*

• venus doesn't leave jersey after hearing about Dally's passing. she doesn't go back to tulsa for the funeral, even after soda begged her to, in the letter he wrote.
she told him she couldn't bare to stand there while they all mourned him, and that it would seem too real.
soda got upset with her, and thought she was being selfish.

• the year passes, and venus begins to lose contact with the boys. she is in college, unsure of what she wants to do, and uses the money that she has been saving for education.
her mother and her have it out sometimes, and don't get along, but venus learns to ignore her and completely delves into her school work.

• venus discovers in one of her classes that she is really passionate about law. her professor convinces her to take a class, and she falls in love with the idea of being a lawyer.
she writes to her dad, who is still in prison in lousiana, and tells him— she wants to be just like him.
he doesn't write back.

• a few months later, venus receives a letter, and she initially believes that it is her father, but soon realizes that the message is from ponyboy. he writes to tell her that sodapop has been drafted, and he is set to leave for boot camp in a weeks time.

• a month later, venus's mother gets a letter— her brother had died in battle.
venus feels conflicted with the information, since they left off on bad terms, but realizes that she might have messed up.
she didn't want something to happen to soda, and him die mad at her the same way her brother had.

• that week she writes darry, asking how to get in touch with soda, and he sends her back the postal address that they were given.
venus writes him a long letter, apologizing about how she had acted after Dally's death, and for not showing up, and tells him that he better be safe or she will 'skin him'.
soda doesn't write back.

• venus is about to start her second year of college when she gets a phone call from a police station in lousiana. her father had died almost a year ago, and the penitentiary had tried to cover it up. the police were investigating.

• losing five people now, venus is sent over the edge.
she drops out of college, starts taking pills, and drinks more than usual.
her cigarette addiction has become something more severe.

• venus is at a bar one night, when she gets so drunk to the point of blacking out, and decides that under the influence, she does not care anymore.
feeling helpless, she goes to get into her car, with all intentions of driving it into the guardrail of a highway.
when she goes to start the car, she sees the ring that Dally had given her, when they started dating, looped around her keychain.
she thinks that he is judging her from the afterlife and can almost hear him scolding her for the decisions she had made in the past year.
venus doesn't start the car.

• venus tries to clean up her act. she gets an internship at a news outlet, and helps cover stories in the paper.
she specializes in highlighting war heroes from vietnam, in honor of her brother and soda, and dedicates a whole article in the paper to it once a week.
she hopes to be a reporter one day.

• about three months into her job, venus turns twenty two, and the anniversary of Dally's death is coming up. she plans to go to tulsa to visit both him and johnny that summer, and saved the money to buy the tickets.
when she comes home from work, it is around seven at night when she gets a frantic phone call from pony.
soda's body had been found dead in a base that had been blown up, they took months to identify him, that's why he hadn't returned her letter.
venus panics, thinking that soda had died mad at her, but ponyboy tells her that they had sent his things home, and there was a letter addressed to her.
ponyboy begs her to come back to tulsa earlier, and she obliges.

•venus arrives in tulsa by the end of the month, and what was once their gang had barely any people left. steve was drafted, and they hadn't heard from him in a while.
two-bit was around, but rarely talked to any of them anymore.
darry was never quite the same, and soda's death had sent him far within himself— numb.
ponyboy, now eighteen, tells her all of this as they watch the stars from the lot one night.
she tells him about how her life had been going, and everything that had happened to her in the past four years.

• soda's funeral passes, and venus gets to see Johnny and Dally's grave for the first time.
she cries, knowing that her and Dally could have been married, and places the engagement ring on the top of his tombstone— she is finally letting go.

• venus opens the letter that soda had meant to send her. he tells her he loves her, and that he could never hate her, and that he was only sorry that they had not gotten to be as close as they could've been.
he tells her that nothings been the same since she left, and johnny and dally died, but he wishes only the best for her, and hopes that she is able to move on the best she can.

• ponyboy begs venus not to leave, as her stay comes to an end, and tells her that her and darry are the only people he has left.
venus promises to come back, and that she would never leave him alone that long again.

• venus keeps her promise, and spends every summer in tulsa with ponyboy.
slowly, they find a comfort in each other, and confess their mutual feelings of love. venus never thought she could love anyone again after dally, but ponyboy had been there for her through everything, and she found herself falling for him.

• pony works his way through college, and graduates with an Bachelor of Arts in english.
venus has an associates now in journalism, and got a job in tulsa.
the two get married, and live to tell the story of all their friends and family—

:))