It's Here!
Not Into The Idea of Living Without You
Ryan Ross/Greta Salpeter
To Terri.
This may have some flaws, and god, I welcome your criticism, but for some weird reason I really love this. Inspired by the January 12 prompt at we_are_cities and by a recent trip.
It’s the neighborhood you see from the highway heading into New York City. It’s the grey, dismal bunch of buildings that are crumbling and falling apart. It’s the potholes in the street that fill with brown, oily water that doesn’t evaporate, and it’s the corner stores that sell canned goods that are years past their expiration date. It’s the neighborhood Ryan calls home by choice, and it’s the only place he can make himself come down from the high of being a rock star.
It’s not that Ryan is worried about his money. It’s not that he’s fed up with his friends and band mates who choose to live where he chooses not to; it’s just that he goes so fast when he’s on tour. His head, it spins and jumps and eventually turns on him. It eventually makes him sit in a quiet place for hours on end and try to sort himself out. He hates it, he doesn’t want it, but it’s something inevitable. Brendon suffers from it also, same with Spencer, but Jon is calm and collected so he doesn’t even come close to getting like them, and no one cared about Brent back then (he wouldn’t have told them anyways). Except, what sets Ryan apart from the rest, what makes him deal with things in a way that none of them can quite completely comprehend, is that they all surround themselves with great, extravagant things and friends and family. They busy themselves with life and outings, and they pull through. Ryan can pull through too eventually, but Ryan can’t connect, Ryan won’t connect, because it’s just those things, that life and those outings, that make him get melancholy and quiet.
It’s just that he needs a place to do normal things in a normal setting, a place where no one will want to visit him. But people do visit. They slink in and try not to touch the walls. They don’t mention that they can just feel their lungs turn black with tobacco smoke from the first floor and the years of dust falling from the cracks in the ceiling. They drink gallons of orange juice and take vitamins weeks before and after the planned visit to keep their immune system strong. They eat their vegetables, they stay healthy, and they don’t drink the tap water from Ryan’s apartment. They refuse guiltily (“No thanks, Ryan. I have a bottle of water in the car.”) and wonder if they locked their car doors. They listen intently for windows smashing in the street three stories below.
Greta is sedulous, scolds him for living in such a dump. She visits almost weekly, tries to relate to Ryan. She doesn’t understand though because she has a strong backbone and a mind that has been trained since birth to be a concrete wall; nothing will affect her. She parks her Toyota in the street next to the storm gutter clogged with trash and old bills carelessly tossed or “lost.” Her car, it was once new in 2000. It’s nothing all that special. Yet, Ryan still worries her hubcaps are going to ripped off every time she comes, but he doesn’t say anything.
She always sits Ryan down and says, “What the hell Ryan? Why are you living here?” She always touches his arm, his elbow. “If you would just go twenty minutes into the city you wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot on the street.” When Ryan stares at the floor that has dirt ground too far in to clean and doesn’t say anything, she always tells him his lungs are going to turn black from the pollution that’s surely in the building.
Ryan always listens respectfully and asks, “Well then why don’t you live there?” Because it’s true, she doesn’t live in an apartment building well maintained with working locks. She lives in the suburbs because she has never lived in the city, not even when she was younger. She enjoys the suburbs of Chicago, New York, and Boston. They remind her of family. Security. If she could, she would have apartments outside of each city. She would decorate them in family portraits, pictures from the months on tour, bright colors, and couches you could spend all day sinking into. But, for now, she has to be content with her suburban apartment outside of New York and her parents’ house outside of Chicago.
“You know it’s not me,” she would say, almost desperate to save herself.
“And you know,” Ryan would shoot back, his words sharp but kind, strong even, “it’s not me either.”
And it’s those words that always start off their conversations. They’re a secret greeting, something only between Ryan Ross and Greta Salpeter, Greta Salpeter and Ryan Ross. Something that other people simply wouldn’t get. Others, well, they would just brush Ryan off as a stupid prick for living in a dump like that, even with so much in the bank. It’s like shoving it in others’ faces, saying, screaming, “I can live here too, you know. I can be in the same boat! And I can relate!” And Greta? Greta would be the pushy, disapproving friend. The friend that can only see flaws, can only pickpickpick at the very flesh of her peers. That doesn’t sound like a well balanced relationship, and it’s really not. It’s just what people see, or people want to see.
In reality, they’re two people everyone else would never be able to understand. They’re friends, but they defy every boundary the “friends” term maps out. They make out after getting fucking smashed at Pete’s club (and only end up remembering the color of the sheets that are later below them). They hold hands and touch but want to strangle each other at the same time. They go on weekend getaways. They work on music together. They even share a piano and song book. Pathetic, really, but he’s toxic to her, and she’s toxic to him. Their relationship, this relationship that everyone is too blind to see, is balanced, hypothetically. It has all the elements of a perfect old married couple: desire, passion, love, hate, annoyance. Old married couples last, they are tough, and they are each other’s very best friends. They are able to shoot each other down and pick each other up. But Ryan and Greta, they’re friends, not some old married couple retired in Florida. Friends! Because Ryan has a girlfriend that’s never there and Greta has an on-again-off-again boyfriend back in Chicago.
The apartment always falls silent after their usual bickering except for the creaking of the whole building. Greta is not scared of germs or of catching rare diseases and always walks around the apartment, putting a hand on the window sill or running her fingers across the countertop.
Today, on this rainy day, Greta is visiting as per usual. She’s bundled tight in sweaters and turtlenecks because Ryan’s heat failed last night. She came bearing blankets and hot coffee. Ryan is forever grateful for her and her company. And her voice, and her soft hands that play the piano so well that he’s jealous, and her smile, and her hair, and her laugh and her eyes that give him that look that makes him simply radiate. And when she sees him smiling despite himself, she has to look away because, “We’re back together.”
Ryan shakes his head, the corners of his lips turning down, and he says as if he doesn’t know, “Who?” He swears he can hear his neighbors scheming how to break into and hotwire Greta’s car. Maybe he’s just going a bit crazy at the moment.
Greta ignores him, her eyes looking at the stained floor. She can see the indents where the years old wood is starting to sag beneath the thin faux tile. She wonders what the apartment building looked like when it was first built. It was probably grand and top notch, she bets. What she really wants to do is ask Ryan how old the building is, but holds herself back. She isn’t as tactless as some may think. Instead, she goes, quietly, “He wants me to move back to Chicago.”
The shock, the initial shock, hits Ryan right in the chest. It penetrates deep, all the way through his flesh, bones, and organs, and back again. He wants to yell, ask her if this is why she really stopped by. He wants his neighbors to smash her car into so many pieces it can’t be placed back together just so she can stay for a bit longer. His eyes stare right through her, cold and harsh. “Can’t even believe it,” he mumbles.
“I’m not going.”
“What, are you fucking with me today?” he says sourly, the shock slowly churning itself to rage.
Greta shakes her head. “What? Never, Ry.” Her hands go up in defense. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then what was the point in telling me?” Ryan sits heavily on his couch. Greta’s in a chair across the room. Her eyes are narrowed, lips parted slightly, like she’s in disbelief. And Ryan thinks that’s good. That’s good because what is she trying to pull here?
“I thought I could tell you these things.” She pauses, and when Ryan continues to just look at her, she continues. “We are friends, Ryan Ross. I think I’ve experienced more with you these past few years than I have with anyone else.”
The silence, it’s all Ryan can concentrate on. This atmosphere is so new to him. It’s so hostile, so tense. This has never happened with Greta. She’s happiness and calmness. She’s never angry, never gives off any negative energy. Yet, here she is, her face as hard as ever, staring Ryan down.
“I don’t fucking get you.” Her words, like venom. Never has anything so harsh come from those lips. Ryan feels like he’s accomplished some sort of record. Imagine: ‘Ryan Ross- Made Greta Salpeter Shoot Steam Out of Her Ears.’ That deserves some sort of plaque or trophy, maybe even a certificate with fancy calligraphy, but Ryan would have to give it to Spencer for safe keeping; it would get stolen in his apartment.
“What, Greta? What do you want me to say?” He throws his hands up, opposite to Greta- defenseless.
“I’m staying, Ryan. I’m not leaving New York for Chicago. You, out of all people, should know…” She trails off and looks at her lap. She picks at her dress. “Besides,” she whispers, “how could I leave you behind here?” Everything suddenly cools. It’s no longer like a furnace, their bodies giving off such scalding heat. Greta softens, like she’s melting, except she’s totally not. She’s still as headstrong as ever. “You should know I wouldn’t leave you alone.”
Without thinking, like he wants her to go back to Chicago, Ryan says, “I’m not alone.”
“Shut up,” she says weakly. She stands and goes to the kitchen to close the thermos of coffee she brought earlier. It has already lost most of its warmth. When she enters back into the living room, she can only look at Ryan. It’s that moment Ryan realizes she can’t leave him. He wouldn’t be able to stand it. When she’s not there, he’s wondering when she’ll return. When they’re on tour, he wonders when their paths will cross. He wants her to tag along with them, always be there, never be able to escape from him, but she has a life too. It’s inevitable, her eventually leaving him behind, because Chris has said things about engagements and Greta and Chicago and that boyfriend of hers when he was too drunk to fully function for a couple of days. Ryan guesses he must have been just as drunk because those words didn’t hurt him then. They only come back to get at him now, at the worst time possible, and he feels like smashing his fist into something.
Greta leaves, silently, because Ryan’s head is in his hands. She’s right there, right there, just so close. He gets bits and pieces of love from her, but never the whole package. There’s always a middle man. There’s always alcohol when he does get her, alcohol that blurs his memory. Her car starts up in the street. He groans loudly. Chicago, New York, boyfriend, you, leave, stay. You should know I wouldn’t leave you alone. He wants her all to himself. He’s selfish, but she’s also losing her appeal by the day. She’s not vivid; she’s not even there suddenly. It feels like she’s slipping right through his hands and he can’t get a firm grip. It would be easier if she was just moving away instead of teasing him.
Ryan Ross/Greta Salpeter
To Terri.
This may have some flaws, and god, I welcome your criticism, but for some weird reason I really love this. Inspired by the January 12 prompt at we_are_cities and by a recent trip.
It’s the neighborhood you see from the highway heading into New York City. It’s the grey, dismal bunch of buildings that are crumbling and falling apart. It’s the potholes in the street that fill with brown, oily water that doesn’t evaporate, and it’s the corner stores that sell canned goods that are years past their expiration date. It’s the neighborhood Ryan calls home by choice, and it’s the only place he can make himself come down from the high of being a rock star.
It’s not that Ryan is worried about his money. It’s not that he’s fed up with his friends and band mates who choose to live where he chooses not to; it’s just that he goes so fast when he’s on tour. His head, it spins and jumps and eventually turns on him. It eventually makes him sit in a quiet place for hours on end and try to sort himself out. He hates it, he doesn’t want it, but it’s something inevitable. Brendon suffers from it also, same with Spencer, but Jon is calm and collected so he doesn’t even come close to getting like them, and no one cared about Brent back then (he wouldn’t have told them anyways). Except, what sets Ryan apart from the rest, what makes him deal with things in a way that none of them can quite completely comprehend, is that they all surround themselves with great, extravagant things and friends and family. They busy themselves with life and outings, and they pull through. Ryan can pull through too eventually, but Ryan can’t connect, Ryan won’t connect, because it’s just those things, that life and those outings, that make him get melancholy and quiet.
It’s just that he needs a place to do normal things in a normal setting, a place where no one will want to visit him. But people do visit. They slink in and try not to touch the walls. They don’t mention that they can just feel their lungs turn black with tobacco smoke from the first floor and the years of dust falling from the cracks in the ceiling. They drink gallons of orange juice and take vitamins weeks before and after the planned visit to keep their immune system strong. They eat their vegetables, they stay healthy, and they don’t drink the tap water from Ryan’s apartment. They refuse guiltily (“No thanks, Ryan. I have a bottle of water in the car.”) and wonder if they locked their car doors. They listen intently for windows smashing in the street three stories below.
Greta is sedulous, scolds him for living in such a dump. She visits almost weekly, tries to relate to Ryan. She doesn’t understand though because she has a strong backbone and a mind that has been trained since birth to be a concrete wall; nothing will affect her. She parks her Toyota in the street next to the storm gutter clogged with trash and old bills carelessly tossed or “lost.” Her car, it was once new in 2000. It’s nothing all that special. Yet, Ryan still worries her hubcaps are going to ripped off every time she comes, but he doesn’t say anything.
She always sits Ryan down and says, “What the hell Ryan? Why are you living here?” She always touches his arm, his elbow. “If you would just go twenty minutes into the city you wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot on the street.” When Ryan stares at the floor that has dirt ground too far in to clean and doesn’t say anything, she always tells him his lungs are going to turn black from the pollution that’s surely in the building.
Ryan always listens respectfully and asks, “Well then why don’t you live there?” Because it’s true, she doesn’t live in an apartment building well maintained with working locks. She lives in the suburbs because she has never lived in the city, not even when she was younger. She enjoys the suburbs of Chicago, New York, and Boston. They remind her of family. Security. If she could, she would have apartments outside of each city. She would decorate them in family portraits, pictures from the months on tour, bright colors, and couches you could spend all day sinking into. But, for now, she has to be content with her suburban apartment outside of New York and her parents’ house outside of Chicago.
“You know it’s not me,” she would say, almost desperate to save herself.
“And you know,” Ryan would shoot back, his words sharp but kind, strong even, “it’s not me either.”
And it’s those words that always start off their conversations. They’re a secret greeting, something only between Ryan Ross and Greta Salpeter, Greta Salpeter and Ryan Ross. Something that other people simply wouldn’t get. Others, well, they would just brush Ryan off as a stupid prick for living in a dump like that, even with so much in the bank. It’s like shoving it in others’ faces, saying, screaming, “I can live here too, you know. I can be in the same boat! And I can relate!” And Greta? Greta would be the pushy, disapproving friend. The friend that can only see flaws, can only pickpickpick at the very flesh of her peers. That doesn’t sound like a well balanced relationship, and it’s really not. It’s just what people see, or people want to see.
In reality, they’re two people everyone else would never be able to understand. They’re friends, but they defy every boundary the “friends” term maps out. They make out after getting fucking smashed at Pete’s club (and only end up remembering the color of the sheets that are later below them). They hold hands and touch but want to strangle each other at the same time. They go on weekend getaways. They work on music together. They even share a piano and song book. Pathetic, really, but he’s toxic to her, and she’s toxic to him. Their relationship, this relationship that everyone is too blind to see, is balanced, hypothetically. It has all the elements of a perfect old married couple: desire, passion, love, hate, annoyance. Old married couples last, they are tough, and they are each other’s very best friends. They are able to shoot each other down and pick each other up. But Ryan and Greta, they’re friends, not some old married couple retired in Florida. Friends! Because Ryan has a girlfriend that’s never there and Greta has an on-again-off-again boyfriend back in Chicago.
The apartment always falls silent after their usual bickering except for the creaking of the whole building. Greta is not scared of germs or of catching rare diseases and always walks around the apartment, putting a hand on the window sill or running her fingers across the countertop.
Today, on this rainy day, Greta is visiting as per usual. She’s bundled tight in sweaters and turtlenecks because Ryan’s heat failed last night. She came bearing blankets and hot coffee. Ryan is forever grateful for her and her company. And her voice, and her soft hands that play the piano so well that he’s jealous, and her smile, and her hair, and her laugh and her eyes that give him that look that makes him simply radiate. And when she sees him smiling despite himself, she has to look away because, “We’re back together.”
Ryan shakes his head, the corners of his lips turning down, and he says as if he doesn’t know, “Who?” He swears he can hear his neighbors scheming how to break into and hotwire Greta’s car. Maybe he’s just going a bit crazy at the moment.
Greta ignores him, her eyes looking at the stained floor. She can see the indents where the years old wood is starting to sag beneath the thin faux tile. She wonders what the apartment building looked like when it was first built. It was probably grand and top notch, she bets. What she really wants to do is ask Ryan how old the building is, but holds herself back. She isn’t as tactless as some may think. Instead, she goes, quietly, “He wants me to move back to Chicago.”
The shock, the initial shock, hits Ryan right in the chest. It penetrates deep, all the way through his flesh, bones, and organs, and back again. He wants to yell, ask her if this is why she really stopped by. He wants his neighbors to smash her car into so many pieces it can’t be placed back together just so she can stay for a bit longer. His eyes stare right through her, cold and harsh. “Can’t even believe it,” he mumbles.
“I’m not going.”
“What, are you fucking with me today?” he says sourly, the shock slowly churning itself to rage.
Greta shakes her head. “What? Never, Ry.” Her hands go up in defense. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Then what was the point in telling me?” Ryan sits heavily on his couch. Greta’s in a chair across the room. Her eyes are narrowed, lips parted slightly, like she’s in disbelief. And Ryan thinks that’s good. That’s good because what is she trying to pull here?
“I thought I could tell you these things.” She pauses, and when Ryan continues to just look at her, she continues. “We are friends, Ryan Ross. I think I’ve experienced more with you these past few years than I have with anyone else.”
The silence, it’s all Ryan can concentrate on. This atmosphere is so new to him. It’s so hostile, so tense. This has never happened with Greta. She’s happiness and calmness. She’s never angry, never gives off any negative energy. Yet, here she is, her face as hard as ever, staring Ryan down.
“I don’t fucking get you.” Her words, like venom. Never has anything so harsh come from those lips. Ryan feels like he’s accomplished some sort of record. Imagine: ‘Ryan Ross- Made Greta Salpeter Shoot Steam Out of Her Ears.’ That deserves some sort of plaque or trophy, maybe even a certificate with fancy calligraphy, but Ryan would have to give it to Spencer for safe keeping; it would get stolen in his apartment.
“What, Greta? What do you want me to say?” He throws his hands up, opposite to Greta- defenseless.
“I’m staying, Ryan. I’m not leaving New York for Chicago. You, out of all people, should know…” She trails off and looks at her lap. She picks at her dress. “Besides,” she whispers, “how could I leave you behind here?” Everything suddenly cools. It’s no longer like a furnace, their bodies giving off such scalding heat. Greta softens, like she’s melting, except she’s totally not. She’s still as headstrong as ever. “You should know I wouldn’t leave you alone.”
Without thinking, like he wants her to go back to Chicago, Ryan says, “I’m not alone.”
“Shut up,” she says weakly. She stands and goes to the kitchen to close the thermos of coffee she brought earlier. It has already lost most of its warmth. When she enters back into the living room, she can only look at Ryan. It’s that moment Ryan realizes she can’t leave him. He wouldn’t be able to stand it. When she’s not there, he’s wondering when she’ll return. When they’re on tour, he wonders when their paths will cross. He wants her to tag along with them, always be there, never be able to escape from him, but she has a life too. It’s inevitable, her eventually leaving him behind, because Chris has said things about engagements and Greta and Chicago and that boyfriend of hers when he was too drunk to fully function for a couple of days. Ryan guesses he must have been just as drunk because those words didn’t hurt him then. They only come back to get at him now, at the worst time possible, and he feels like smashing his fist into something.
Greta leaves, silently, because Ryan’s head is in his hands. She’s right there, right there, just so close. He gets bits and pieces of love from her, but never the whole package. There’s always a middle man. There’s always alcohol when he does get her, alcohol that blurs his memory. Her car starts up in the street. He groans loudly. Chicago, New York, boyfriend, you, leave, stay. You should know I wouldn’t leave you alone. He wants her all to himself. He’s selfish, but she’s also losing her appeal by the day. She’s not vivid; she’s not even there suddenly. It feels like she’s slipping right through his hands and he can’t get a firm grip. It would be easier if she was just moving away instead of teasing him.