There's not a whole lot of people of a certain age that can remember much about middle school, but chances are that S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is a pretty strong memory, if not from the novel itself, but by watching the Francis Ford Coppola movie in class after everybody had collectively read the book and taken a quiz or did some kind of report on the story. The book just celebrated its 50th anniversary and for those who don't know, S.E. Hinton started the book while she was still in high school and published it when she was just 17-years old. Hinton was determined to tell a story on her own terms, outside of the norm at the time. However, the tragic ending has always been a mystery. Why did S.E. Hinton choose such a brutal end?

As it turns out, people that have read The Outsiders in middle school have been trying to figure out this mystery for decades. While the 69-year old author was cruising around on Twitter, reportedly commenting on cat videos, a long-time fan asked S.E. Hinton for her reasoning behind the tragic ending of The Outsiders and the answer will more than likely surprise you. The author simply replied, "because I am a stone cold bitch." Yes, that's for real and you can now tack that on to your middle school memory. S.E. Hinton claims to be a "stone cold bitch," which is why The Outsiders had such a messed up ending. Who would've thought?