Small Steps 9
Title : Small Steps
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Oliver is back, and makes a mess of things again. Set in season 2.
Spoilers : Everything that's been aired up to The Rainy Day Women is fair game.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Acknowledgements : Again, many thanks to my beta, Joey51.
Chapter 9 : The Gathering
Strangely enough, when Ryan woke up at seven in the morning, emerging slowly from a deep sleep, it took him a moment to figure out what was different.
He felt relaxed, a little drowsy, and he lolled a little in bed, enjoying the sensation. Then, it occurred to him that for the first time since That Night, he hadn't had any nightmares.
There had merely been one disturbing dream in which Oliver had apologized, said he hadn't meant to hurt anyone, then had begun to *glow* -- Ryan was blaming that one on the Babylon 5 orgy.
But other than that incident, the night had been peaceful. No gunshot, no blood. No cops.
Ryan stretched lazily, then regretfully got to his feet, yawning. It seemed almost criminal to officially declare that his first good night since Oliver had died was over. It was almost as if leaving his bed, and leaving the night behind, meant that the nightmares would come back next time he slept.
Ryan shook the superstitious thought, and headed to the bathroom.
Last night hadn't been an exception, he thought.
It had been a sign that things were slowly going back to normal.
As always, bad days would eventually give way to better days, then to good days. And the good days would finally outnumber the bad days, until the next crisis struck.
* * *
Ryan stumbled into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed. He envied Seth's ability to sleep until noon during the holidays. Ryan had always been a light sleeper and an early riser, and he was always slightly amazed when he met someone who could sleep the morning away.
Sandy was seated on a stool, drinking his coffee. They exchanged listless greetings as Ryan selected a box of cereal.
"Bad night?" Sandy asked.
Ryan grunted and sat heavily, trying to force his brain to kick into gear, so that he'd look vaguely coherent. "No, actually," he finally answered.
Sandy looked surprised. "Oh," he said.
Ryan smiled and shrugged, as if to say, "Go figure." It was a little disappointing to still feel sluggish after having slept well, Ryan thought. But then, he supposed that one good night would never be enough to make up for a dozen bad ones.
Sandy finished his coffee and rose up, looking only marginally better than Ryan felt. He put a hand on Ryan's shoulder, saying, "If you want to talk." He never finished the sentence anymore. Neither did Kirsten. Sometimes, Ryan felt bad that they always had to repeat it.
"Yeah."
Sandy gave his shoulder a squeeze and left.
Ryan enjoyed a full four seconds of solitude before Kirsten entered the kitchen.
"You just missed Sandy," he said.
She smiled. "That's okay."
She took a good look at him before pouring herself a cup of coffee, opened her mouth as if to ask something, closed it and smiled.
"What?" Ryan asked.
She shook her head. "Nothing," she said. "I…" Again, she hesitated, then shook her head again more firmly. "I need to go. See you tonight?"
Ryan nodded, nonplussed.
"Right," Kirsten said. She smiled again and left, leaving Ryan alone.
Ryan stared at his cereal, feeling puzzled and strangely vulnerable.
* * *
Kirsten was reading on the patio when Ryan approached her, late in the afternoon. They had the house to themselves for a couple of hours, and Kirsten needed some quiet after a difficult day at the office -- her dad was back, and he was in top form.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan walking toward her hesitantly, two bottles of soda in hand.
She raised her head as he came to a stop in front of her.
"I give up," Ryan said, offering her one of the bottle before sitting next to her.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"It's been bugging me all day," he said, sounding put-out. "So, okay. What did you want to ask me this morning, before you left?"
Kirsten took a sip of her drink and stared out at the ocean for a while. Ryan was sitting stock-still beside her, obviously braced for the worst. "Are you still mad at us, for not believing you the first time Oliver was around?" she asked. She turned to face Ryan. "That's what I wanted to ask you." And she almost had, because they had been tip-toeing around the subject long enough, and this tentativeness around the topic was becoming ridiculous. And frustrating.
But then, she had realized that Ryan was barely awake, and would undoubtedly interpret her question as an attempt to manipulate him. Which, Kirsten admitted, wouldn't have been so far from the truth.
"It's been bugging you?" she asked, smiling, when Ryan didn't answer her question.
He shrugged self-consciously.
She laughed softly. "So that's what it takes to make you volunteer for a talk? Arouse your curiosity, then let you stew for a few hours?"
Ryan rolled his eyes. "If you're too tired," he said, "We can do it later. I didn't mean to bother you, but I was just…"
"Curious?" He looked as self-conscious as he ever had, and it suddenly occurred to her that Ryan was actually volunteering to talk, and that it must have taken a lot of courage for him to approach her. She could see the way his body tensed and relaxed, as if he was making a conscious effort to stay seated instead of backing off. To ease the tension, she said in a teasing tone, "I wouldn't miss an opportunity to have one of our infamous Cohen talks with you."
He shook his head. "You make it sound as if you need to sit on me to talk to me," he complained. "I'm not *that* bad."
"I know," she said. "You're just quieter than the other teenager who lives here."
She could still remember cornering Ryan, shortly before their first Chrismukkah together. She had told him that he could always talk to her, or to Sandy, that he should feel comfortable, and all the time, Ryan had looked down and nodded. When she had finally paused to catch her breath, he had thrown in, "Kirsten, you and Sandy are going to have to accept the fact that I just need fewer words than Seth. He rambles, he rants, he goes on irrelevant tangents, and he uses ten words where one would be enough. I just, I say what I want to say. Promise." He had looked so earnest and desperate to convince her, that Kirsten had almost dragged him into a reassuring hug. But it had been too early in their relationship, and Ryan had been nervous enough.
Ryan snorted, bringing Kirsten back to the present. "How would you have dealt with two Seths?" he asked.
"Duct tape," she said in all seriousness.
There was a comfortable silence, which Kirsten loathed to break. But she needed to know. "You didn't answer my question," she said. "Sandy and I were wondering if--" She thought for a minute, wondering how to put it. "We're willing to give you as much time as you need, you know that."
He nodded.
"But we're wondering if the fact that we didn't listen to you the last time Oliver was involved was making you reluctant to come to us now."
"It was long ago, Kirsten."
"And it happened at the worst possible moment, when we were finally starting to feel more at ease around each other," she said. "I can tell you that many people felt awful -- but none more so than the three of us."
Kirsten and Sandy had discussed it at length several times already. "I had him talking, damn it," Sandy had once told her. "It took some convincing, but he was finally going to tell me what was happening. And two words into his explanation, I cut him off and went all lawyerly on him."
And the window of opportunity had closed, and they had gone back to the uneasy cohabitation, until Oliver had finally gone too far.
"You know," Ryan said, "Thinking back on it, I realize how I must have sounded. How it must have looked." He smiled sadly. "No wonder no one believed me."
She frowned, but before she could tell him that he wasn't the one to blame, he added, "What I'm trying to say is, I should have tried harder. I just didn't know how to."
"You did everything you could."
He shook his head, his eyes taking on a darker shade of blue. "Breaking into the school? I mean, all I had was a bad feeling, but I learned to trust those early. But, I refused to listen too. I panicked. I saw what he was trying to do, and I panicked."
"We didn't see that. And perhaps, if we had trusted you…"
He frowned. "Yes, well, if I had been clearer… If I had explained that I trusted Marissa, that it was Oliver who was in love with her, not the other way around, perhaps you wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss it." Then he snorted. "Although, didn't the fact that I asked *Julie Cooper* for help set off *any* alarms?"
Kirsten laughed with him. "It should have; you're right."
"I'm mad at myself," Ryan admitted. "Because I saw what he was doing. And I still allowed him to get at me; I still let him manipulate me. I knew I couldn't afford to lose it, and I did anyway." He had a wry smile. "Trey would have kicked my ass. Big time."
"Would he?"
He tilted his head to the side, as he often did when he was weighing his words. "Yes. But… He would also have kicked Oliver's. No questions asked."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
Ryan smiled. "It's okay. It's over now, and really, if anyone screwed up, everyone did."
For a moment, he looked frighteningly exhausted. Kirsten wanted to take all his problems away, but being a mother often meant being helpless. "At least we talked about it," she said. "We should have long ago. You didn't seem to want to talk about it at all, so we didn't insist."
"I didn't want to talk about it," Ryan confirmed. "What was done was done, and I didn't see how talking would help. And hey, at least, you didn't joke about it, like Marissa did."
Kirsten grimaced. "Ouch," she said compassionately.
Ryan rolled his eyes and grimaced. "You can say that again," he said.
Kirsten considered him a moment. "Do you think that talking won't help in this case either?" she asked.
He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "No," he said. "I just don't know where to begin."
"How are you doing?" she asked. "That would be a fairly good starting point, I think."
He sighed. "I don't know. I'm still mad at Marissa, a little." Kirsten gritted her teeth, causing Ryan to add, "Not because she called. But did you know he had contacted her? They had seen each other, they were writing to each other."
Kirsten shook her head in dismay. "I didn't know," she said. "I can't say I'm that surprised." It was such a Marissa thing to do, to write to the person who was obsessed with her and had once held her at gunpoint. Had the girl ever managed to avoid a sticky situation?
Ryan was studying Kirsten, so she stopped thinking about Marissa, because Ryan's powers of observation sometimes bordered on telepathy and she didn't want him to pick up on what she was thinking. "*I* am mad at her," she admitted. "It may be irrational, but call it mother's prerogative. She put you in danger."
"Actually, Oliver did," Ryan pointed out. "He's the reason we're having this discussion in the first place, he's the reason I'm feeling lousy, he's the reason you and Sandy and even my friends walk on eggshells around me, and even dead, he manages to screw things up."
They fell silent. Ryan was staring at the half-empty bottles while Kirsten studied him. He raised his eyes. "Was that an acceptable Cohen talk?" he asked lightly, effectively conveying that he didn't plan on saying more just now.
Kirsten reached over and patted his hand. "It was very good," she said, following his lead. "I'll just say this one last time; I'm sorry we didn't listen last time, and I promise, if you come to us this time, we'll do better."
A myriad of emotions flashed in his eyes, but he didn't reply. He got up, stood there a moment, obviously psyching himself up for something. Kirsten waited, curious. After a while, Ryan nodded to himself, leaned down and kissed her cheek lightly, before heading to the poolhouse without looking back. Which was just as well, since Kirsten suddenly developed a bad case of pollen allergies, and spent five minutes blinking back unexpected tears.
* * *
Ryan was reading when Sandy entered the poolhouse, looking focused and determined.
Ryan looked at him warily, praying there wasn't yet another conversation waiting to happen. There were only so many words he could deliver on any given day.
Fortunately, amazingly, Sandy wasn't there to talk.
Sandy was just there to say that Seth had rounded "everyone" up, and they were coming over for supper. "So if you feel like company…"
Ryan pondered the question. He hadn't seen many people these last few days. Only the Cohens, Luke and Marissa. He hadn't felt the need for more company, hadn't felt ready to talk, or to be sociable.
Basically, he had taken some time out from the world, until he was ready to face it again. The Cohens had been incredibly obliging, he now realized. Not only had they avoided pushing him to go out, they had even encouraged him to do what he thought was best.
He supposed it was time to declare the time out over.
He needed to get back in the world sometime. Probably better to do it here, where he could retire to the safety of his room if things got to be too much. And he doubted they would -- his friends were not pushy by nature. Nosy, yes, but not pushy.
"Yeah, sure" he told Sandy. The relief on the man's face was almost as comical as it was touching. It made Ryan feel glad that he had decided to join the others.
"How do you feel?" Sandy asked. "No grand declarations, just give me a little something."
Ryan refrained from telling Sandy that he could always ask Kirsten for a transcript of their discussion. It would have been unfair -- Sandy was just as worried as Kirsten was, and he deserved something. "I called Trey," he announced.
Sandy frowned, as if trying to figure out what that statement had to do with his question.
"He asked me…" Ryan took a deep breath. "He asked me if I doubted Oliver would have killed me, if I hadn't killed him first."
Sandy's face instantly took on an alarming shade of red. Ryan hastened to add, "He wasn't very tactful when he asked it, but I think I needed to hear it."
"Why?"
"Because… I've had a strange life, Sandy."
Sandy nodded. Waited.
"Three weeks ago, I'd have told you that I'd never be able to kill someone."
Sandy intervened. "You didn't kill him, Ryan. You didn't have a choice."
"I may not have had a choice, but I did kill him," Ryan replied. "And… I don't know. I was wondering if maybe there was another option that I didn't see."
"There wasn't," Sandy said. "Kirsten and I could have told you that."
"I know," Ryan said.
"Then why didn't you ask us immediately?"
Ryan shrugged. "It's your job to say stuff like that to me," he said. He felt his cheeks burn and wondered what the hell was happening -- he *never* blushed. "I think I've grown used to having you in my corner," he added.
He still cherished this feeling of having someone who would look out for his best interests, without wanting anything in payment. Someone who would comfort him without needing anything in return.
"Oh," Sandy said, his voice weak.
"I guess I wanted brutal honesty."
"Was Trey brutal enough?" Sandy asked.
"I could always count on Trey for that, if nothing else," Ryan deadpanned. "I didn't mean to keep you in the dark, okay? I just didn't know what to say. I didn't even know what I wanted, until I called Trey. I don't analyze everything I do, you know."
Sandy smiled. "Not the way we do it?"
"Well…"
Sandy laughed. "Okay," he said.
"Now, have I talked enough for the day?" Ryan asked sarcastically as he got to his feet.
After a brief moment of thought, Sandy nodded. "I suppose so, yes."
"Thank God," Ryan muttered, not entirely joking, as he made his way to the house, Sandy trailing behind him.
* * *
To his surprise, Ryan had a great time. Summer was in top form, arguing with Seth over pretty much everything he said. Luke whispered to Ryan, at some point, "These two will *so* get married."
Ryan privately agreed.
Luke and Seth played Grand Theft Auto, and Ryan snarked that the game designers didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Naturally, Seth challenged him, and Ryan beat him soundly. "Do you seriously think you or a video game can best my car stealing abilities?" he asked.
"You were busted," Summer pointed out.
Ryan shrugged. "Well, yeah." After all this time, and now that his probation was officially over, he could joke about it. A little.
There was a lull in the conversation, as every teenager happily munched on chips.
After a few minutes, Seth broke the quiet. "Why didn't Marissa come?"
Luke shrugged. "She didn't feel like hanging out," he said. The way he was carefully avoiding to look in Ryan's direction was a dead give away.
"Meaning, she doesn't want to hang out with me," Ryan said.
"She feels guilty," Luke said. "She said she shouldn't have called you."
Ryan knew that Marissa didn't feel bad because she had called as much as because she had brought the situation upon herself in the first place. He wasn't about to say so to Luke, though. He shrugged. "I did tell her it was cool."
"You know Marissa," Luke replied. "She's upset. She's been upset for a while, really." He frowned. "I used to think it was me."
Ryan sighed. "It's everything," he said. "Her parents, you, me, booze, drugs, Oliver, too much money, then not enough, then too much again…"
"She's had it tough," Luke agreed.
Ryan thought that pretty much everyone in this room had had it tough -- Luke and his dad, Summer and her absent parents, Seth and his lonely childhood. Kirsten had lost her mother and had a bastard as a father. Sandy had had an absent mother, and didn't speak with his siblings anymore.
And yet, none of them were wallowing in self-pity and drinking themselves into a stupor at the slightest provocation.
One of Ryan's teachers had once explained that some people always misspelled some words, no matter how many times they had been corrected. "Think of it as the mental fingerprints of writers," he had said.
Just as some people were incapable to do crossword puzzles. Or to guess the answer of a riddle. Or to understand algebra. Or, in Ryan's case, symbolism in Russian authors. Blind spots, things that the brain couldn't process, no matter how much effort was put into it.
Ryan thought the same reasoning could easily be applied to relationships.
He had once been convinced that he was the one who caused his mother to drink. Now that he could look at her from a certain distance, he recognized that she had been much like Marissa -- lost, unable to change, unable to accept help, because in her head, it wasn't her fault, her responsibility. Other people were responsible for her problems. Never her.
He shook his head. And now that he could watch Marissa from a distance, he recognized the pattern. He hoped she would fare better than his mother, hoped she would realize soon enough that she was throwing her life away.
"You're brooding," Seth said, startling him.
"Thinking," he countered, and he forced a smile. "It's fine."
Summer studied him for a while, then said, "Well, it's a beautiful night, and it's almost the end of the holiday. There's a party on the beach. Let's go."
She got to her feet and marched to the door, barely pausing long enough to check that everyone was following.
"You up to it?" Seth asked.
Ryan groaned. "A party? With music, and happy people, and probably fights?" Seth waited in silence, smirking. "Why not?" Ryan said.
Summer was right.
It *was* a beautiful night.
Chapter 10
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Oliver is back, and makes a mess of things again. Set in season 2.
Spoilers : Everything that's been aired up to The Rainy Day Women is fair game.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Acknowledgements : Again, many thanks to my beta, Joey51.
Chapter 9 : The Gathering
Strangely enough, when Ryan woke up at seven in the morning, emerging slowly from a deep sleep, it took him a moment to figure out what was different.
He felt relaxed, a little drowsy, and he lolled a little in bed, enjoying the sensation. Then, it occurred to him that for the first time since That Night, he hadn't had any nightmares.
There had merely been one disturbing dream in which Oliver had apologized, said he hadn't meant to hurt anyone, then had begun to *glow* -- Ryan was blaming that one on the Babylon 5 orgy.
But other than that incident, the night had been peaceful. No gunshot, no blood. No cops.
Ryan stretched lazily, then regretfully got to his feet, yawning. It seemed almost criminal to officially declare that his first good night since Oliver had died was over. It was almost as if leaving his bed, and leaving the night behind, meant that the nightmares would come back next time he slept.
Ryan shook the superstitious thought, and headed to the bathroom.
Last night hadn't been an exception, he thought.
It had been a sign that things were slowly going back to normal.
As always, bad days would eventually give way to better days, then to good days. And the good days would finally outnumber the bad days, until the next crisis struck.
* * *
Ryan stumbled into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed. He envied Seth's ability to sleep until noon during the holidays. Ryan had always been a light sleeper and an early riser, and he was always slightly amazed when he met someone who could sleep the morning away.
Sandy was seated on a stool, drinking his coffee. They exchanged listless greetings as Ryan selected a box of cereal.
"Bad night?" Sandy asked.
Ryan grunted and sat heavily, trying to force his brain to kick into gear, so that he'd look vaguely coherent. "No, actually," he finally answered.
Sandy looked surprised. "Oh," he said.
Ryan smiled and shrugged, as if to say, "Go figure." It was a little disappointing to still feel sluggish after having slept well, Ryan thought. But then, he supposed that one good night would never be enough to make up for a dozen bad ones.
Sandy finished his coffee and rose up, looking only marginally better than Ryan felt. He put a hand on Ryan's shoulder, saying, "If you want to talk." He never finished the sentence anymore. Neither did Kirsten. Sometimes, Ryan felt bad that they always had to repeat it.
"Yeah."
Sandy gave his shoulder a squeeze and left.
Ryan enjoyed a full four seconds of solitude before Kirsten entered the kitchen.
"You just missed Sandy," he said.
She smiled. "That's okay."
She took a good look at him before pouring herself a cup of coffee, opened her mouth as if to ask something, closed it and smiled.
"What?" Ryan asked.
She shook her head. "Nothing," she said. "I…" Again, she hesitated, then shook her head again more firmly. "I need to go. See you tonight?"
Ryan nodded, nonplussed.
"Right," Kirsten said. She smiled again and left, leaving Ryan alone.
Ryan stared at his cereal, feeling puzzled and strangely vulnerable.
* * *
Kirsten was reading on the patio when Ryan approached her, late in the afternoon. They had the house to themselves for a couple of hours, and Kirsten needed some quiet after a difficult day at the office -- her dad was back, and he was in top form.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan walking toward her hesitantly, two bottles of soda in hand.
She raised her head as he came to a stop in front of her.
"I give up," Ryan said, offering her one of the bottle before sitting next to her.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"It's been bugging me all day," he said, sounding put-out. "So, okay. What did you want to ask me this morning, before you left?"
Kirsten took a sip of her drink and stared out at the ocean for a while. Ryan was sitting stock-still beside her, obviously braced for the worst. "Are you still mad at us, for not believing you the first time Oliver was around?" she asked. She turned to face Ryan. "That's what I wanted to ask you." And she almost had, because they had been tip-toeing around the subject long enough, and this tentativeness around the topic was becoming ridiculous. And frustrating.
But then, she had realized that Ryan was barely awake, and would undoubtedly interpret her question as an attempt to manipulate him. Which, Kirsten admitted, wouldn't have been so far from the truth.
"It's been bugging you?" she asked, smiling, when Ryan didn't answer her question.
He shrugged self-consciously.
She laughed softly. "So that's what it takes to make you volunteer for a talk? Arouse your curiosity, then let you stew for a few hours?"
Ryan rolled his eyes. "If you're too tired," he said, "We can do it later. I didn't mean to bother you, but I was just…"
"Curious?" He looked as self-conscious as he ever had, and it suddenly occurred to her that Ryan was actually volunteering to talk, and that it must have taken a lot of courage for him to approach her. She could see the way his body tensed and relaxed, as if he was making a conscious effort to stay seated instead of backing off. To ease the tension, she said in a teasing tone, "I wouldn't miss an opportunity to have one of our infamous Cohen talks with you."
He shook his head. "You make it sound as if you need to sit on me to talk to me," he complained. "I'm not *that* bad."
"I know," she said. "You're just quieter than the other teenager who lives here."
She could still remember cornering Ryan, shortly before their first Chrismukkah together. She had told him that he could always talk to her, or to Sandy, that he should feel comfortable, and all the time, Ryan had looked down and nodded. When she had finally paused to catch her breath, he had thrown in, "Kirsten, you and Sandy are going to have to accept the fact that I just need fewer words than Seth. He rambles, he rants, he goes on irrelevant tangents, and he uses ten words where one would be enough. I just, I say what I want to say. Promise." He had looked so earnest and desperate to convince her, that Kirsten had almost dragged him into a reassuring hug. But it had been too early in their relationship, and Ryan had been nervous enough.
Ryan snorted, bringing Kirsten back to the present. "How would you have dealt with two Seths?" he asked.
"Duct tape," she said in all seriousness.
There was a comfortable silence, which Kirsten loathed to break. But she needed to know. "You didn't answer my question," she said. "Sandy and I were wondering if--" She thought for a minute, wondering how to put it. "We're willing to give you as much time as you need, you know that."
He nodded.
"But we're wondering if the fact that we didn't listen to you the last time Oliver was involved was making you reluctant to come to us now."
"It was long ago, Kirsten."
"And it happened at the worst possible moment, when we were finally starting to feel more at ease around each other," she said. "I can tell you that many people felt awful -- but none more so than the three of us."
Kirsten and Sandy had discussed it at length several times already. "I had him talking, damn it," Sandy had once told her. "It took some convincing, but he was finally going to tell me what was happening. And two words into his explanation, I cut him off and went all lawyerly on him."
And the window of opportunity had closed, and they had gone back to the uneasy cohabitation, until Oliver had finally gone too far.
"You know," Ryan said, "Thinking back on it, I realize how I must have sounded. How it must have looked." He smiled sadly. "No wonder no one believed me."
She frowned, but before she could tell him that he wasn't the one to blame, he added, "What I'm trying to say is, I should have tried harder. I just didn't know how to."
"You did everything you could."
He shook his head, his eyes taking on a darker shade of blue. "Breaking into the school? I mean, all I had was a bad feeling, but I learned to trust those early. But, I refused to listen too. I panicked. I saw what he was trying to do, and I panicked."
"We didn't see that. And perhaps, if we had trusted you…"
He frowned. "Yes, well, if I had been clearer… If I had explained that I trusted Marissa, that it was Oliver who was in love with her, not the other way around, perhaps you wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss it." Then he snorted. "Although, didn't the fact that I asked *Julie Cooper* for help set off *any* alarms?"
Kirsten laughed with him. "It should have; you're right."
"I'm mad at myself," Ryan admitted. "Because I saw what he was doing. And I still allowed him to get at me; I still let him manipulate me. I knew I couldn't afford to lose it, and I did anyway." He had a wry smile. "Trey would have kicked my ass. Big time."
"Would he?"
He tilted his head to the side, as he often did when he was weighing his words. "Yes. But… He would also have kicked Oliver's. No questions asked."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
Ryan smiled. "It's okay. It's over now, and really, if anyone screwed up, everyone did."
For a moment, he looked frighteningly exhausted. Kirsten wanted to take all his problems away, but being a mother often meant being helpless. "At least we talked about it," she said. "We should have long ago. You didn't seem to want to talk about it at all, so we didn't insist."
"I didn't want to talk about it," Ryan confirmed. "What was done was done, and I didn't see how talking would help. And hey, at least, you didn't joke about it, like Marissa did."
Kirsten grimaced. "Ouch," she said compassionately.
Ryan rolled his eyes and grimaced. "You can say that again," he said.
Kirsten considered him a moment. "Do you think that talking won't help in this case either?" she asked.
He shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "No," he said. "I just don't know where to begin."
"How are you doing?" she asked. "That would be a fairly good starting point, I think."
He sighed. "I don't know. I'm still mad at Marissa, a little." Kirsten gritted her teeth, causing Ryan to add, "Not because she called. But did you know he had contacted her? They had seen each other, they were writing to each other."
Kirsten shook her head in dismay. "I didn't know," she said. "I can't say I'm that surprised." It was such a Marissa thing to do, to write to the person who was obsessed with her and had once held her at gunpoint. Had the girl ever managed to avoid a sticky situation?
Ryan was studying Kirsten, so she stopped thinking about Marissa, because Ryan's powers of observation sometimes bordered on telepathy and she didn't want him to pick up on what she was thinking. "*I* am mad at her," she admitted. "It may be irrational, but call it mother's prerogative. She put you in danger."
"Actually, Oliver did," Ryan pointed out. "He's the reason we're having this discussion in the first place, he's the reason I'm feeling lousy, he's the reason you and Sandy and even my friends walk on eggshells around me, and even dead, he manages to screw things up."
They fell silent. Ryan was staring at the half-empty bottles while Kirsten studied him. He raised his eyes. "Was that an acceptable Cohen talk?" he asked lightly, effectively conveying that he didn't plan on saying more just now.
Kirsten reached over and patted his hand. "It was very good," she said, following his lead. "I'll just say this one last time; I'm sorry we didn't listen last time, and I promise, if you come to us this time, we'll do better."
A myriad of emotions flashed in his eyes, but he didn't reply. He got up, stood there a moment, obviously psyching himself up for something. Kirsten waited, curious. After a while, Ryan nodded to himself, leaned down and kissed her cheek lightly, before heading to the poolhouse without looking back. Which was just as well, since Kirsten suddenly developed a bad case of pollen allergies, and spent five minutes blinking back unexpected tears.
* * *
Ryan was reading when Sandy entered the poolhouse, looking focused and determined.
Ryan looked at him warily, praying there wasn't yet another conversation waiting to happen. There were only so many words he could deliver on any given day.
Fortunately, amazingly, Sandy wasn't there to talk.
Sandy was just there to say that Seth had rounded "everyone" up, and they were coming over for supper. "So if you feel like company…"
Ryan pondered the question. He hadn't seen many people these last few days. Only the Cohens, Luke and Marissa. He hadn't felt the need for more company, hadn't felt ready to talk, or to be sociable.
Basically, he had taken some time out from the world, until he was ready to face it again. The Cohens had been incredibly obliging, he now realized. Not only had they avoided pushing him to go out, they had even encouraged him to do what he thought was best.
He supposed it was time to declare the time out over.
He needed to get back in the world sometime. Probably better to do it here, where he could retire to the safety of his room if things got to be too much. And he doubted they would -- his friends were not pushy by nature. Nosy, yes, but not pushy.
"Yeah, sure" he told Sandy. The relief on the man's face was almost as comical as it was touching. It made Ryan feel glad that he had decided to join the others.
"How do you feel?" Sandy asked. "No grand declarations, just give me a little something."
Ryan refrained from telling Sandy that he could always ask Kirsten for a transcript of their discussion. It would have been unfair -- Sandy was just as worried as Kirsten was, and he deserved something. "I called Trey," he announced.
Sandy frowned, as if trying to figure out what that statement had to do with his question.
"He asked me…" Ryan took a deep breath. "He asked me if I doubted Oliver would have killed me, if I hadn't killed him first."
Sandy's face instantly took on an alarming shade of red. Ryan hastened to add, "He wasn't very tactful when he asked it, but I think I needed to hear it."
"Why?"
"Because… I've had a strange life, Sandy."
Sandy nodded. Waited.
"Three weeks ago, I'd have told you that I'd never be able to kill someone."
Sandy intervened. "You didn't kill him, Ryan. You didn't have a choice."
"I may not have had a choice, but I did kill him," Ryan replied. "And… I don't know. I was wondering if maybe there was another option that I didn't see."
"There wasn't," Sandy said. "Kirsten and I could have told you that."
"I know," Ryan said.
"Then why didn't you ask us immediately?"
Ryan shrugged. "It's your job to say stuff like that to me," he said. He felt his cheeks burn and wondered what the hell was happening -- he *never* blushed. "I think I've grown used to having you in my corner," he added.
He still cherished this feeling of having someone who would look out for his best interests, without wanting anything in payment. Someone who would comfort him without needing anything in return.
"Oh," Sandy said, his voice weak.
"I guess I wanted brutal honesty."
"Was Trey brutal enough?" Sandy asked.
"I could always count on Trey for that, if nothing else," Ryan deadpanned. "I didn't mean to keep you in the dark, okay? I just didn't know what to say. I didn't even know what I wanted, until I called Trey. I don't analyze everything I do, you know."
Sandy smiled. "Not the way we do it?"
"Well…"
Sandy laughed. "Okay," he said.
"Now, have I talked enough for the day?" Ryan asked sarcastically as he got to his feet.
After a brief moment of thought, Sandy nodded. "I suppose so, yes."
"Thank God," Ryan muttered, not entirely joking, as he made his way to the house, Sandy trailing behind him.
* * *
To his surprise, Ryan had a great time. Summer was in top form, arguing with Seth over pretty much everything he said. Luke whispered to Ryan, at some point, "These two will *so* get married."
Ryan privately agreed.
Luke and Seth played Grand Theft Auto, and Ryan snarked that the game designers didn't have any idea what they were talking about. Naturally, Seth challenged him, and Ryan beat him soundly. "Do you seriously think you or a video game can best my car stealing abilities?" he asked.
"You were busted," Summer pointed out.
Ryan shrugged. "Well, yeah." After all this time, and now that his probation was officially over, he could joke about it. A little.
There was a lull in the conversation, as every teenager happily munched on chips.
After a few minutes, Seth broke the quiet. "Why didn't Marissa come?"
Luke shrugged. "She didn't feel like hanging out," he said. The way he was carefully avoiding to look in Ryan's direction was a dead give away.
"Meaning, she doesn't want to hang out with me," Ryan said.
"She feels guilty," Luke said. "She said she shouldn't have called you."
Ryan knew that Marissa didn't feel bad because she had called as much as because she had brought the situation upon herself in the first place. He wasn't about to say so to Luke, though. He shrugged. "I did tell her it was cool."
"You know Marissa," Luke replied. "She's upset. She's been upset for a while, really." He frowned. "I used to think it was me."
Ryan sighed. "It's everything," he said. "Her parents, you, me, booze, drugs, Oliver, too much money, then not enough, then too much again…"
"She's had it tough," Luke agreed.
Ryan thought that pretty much everyone in this room had had it tough -- Luke and his dad, Summer and her absent parents, Seth and his lonely childhood. Kirsten had lost her mother and had a bastard as a father. Sandy had had an absent mother, and didn't speak with his siblings anymore.
And yet, none of them were wallowing in self-pity and drinking themselves into a stupor at the slightest provocation.
One of Ryan's teachers had once explained that some people always misspelled some words, no matter how many times they had been corrected. "Think of it as the mental fingerprints of writers," he had said.
Just as some people were incapable to do crossword puzzles. Or to guess the answer of a riddle. Or to understand algebra. Or, in Ryan's case, symbolism in Russian authors. Blind spots, things that the brain couldn't process, no matter how much effort was put into it.
Ryan thought the same reasoning could easily be applied to relationships.
He had once been convinced that he was the one who caused his mother to drink. Now that he could look at her from a certain distance, he recognized that she had been much like Marissa -- lost, unable to change, unable to accept help, because in her head, it wasn't her fault, her responsibility. Other people were responsible for her problems. Never her.
He shook his head. And now that he could watch Marissa from a distance, he recognized the pattern. He hoped she would fare better than his mother, hoped she would realize soon enough that she was throwing her life away.
"You're brooding," Seth said, startling him.
"Thinking," he countered, and he forced a smile. "It's fine."
Summer studied him for a while, then said, "Well, it's a beautiful night, and it's almost the end of the holiday. There's a party on the beach. Let's go."
She got to her feet and marched to the door, barely pausing long enough to check that everyone was following.
"You up to it?" Seth asked.
Ryan groaned. "A party? With music, and happy people, and probably fights?" Seth waited in silence, smirking. "Why not?" Ryan said.
Summer was right.
It *was* a beautiful night.
Chapter 10