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arualmsbrandywine421's birthday fic D is for Death aka Chaos TheoryAN: For Brandy, of course, and also for all the members of the flist who are suffering from the evil curse.
Part 3
When Ryan entered the kitchen the next morning, he had to fight to keep his eyes open. The few hours of sleep he had managed to get before his nightmare had woken him up had definitely not been enough, and afterwards he had been unwilling and unable to fall asleep again. Unfortunately, the bags under his eyes were hard to miss, so he was probably in for a lot of smothering by the Cohens today.
Apart form the fact that he usually felt more comfortable just taking care of himself, there had been an added strangeness to their hovering presence the other day. Over the last month, he had gotten so used to their absence that he did not know how to react to the way that suddenly they wouldn’t let him out of their sight. Part of him enjoyed the knowledge that they were there for him, but another part couldn’t help but reprimand himself for liking a consequence of what had happened to Marissa.
Marissa was dead. He had tried to keep himself from acknowledging it the day before, but after spending an hour in the bathroom last night, vomiting through the remembered smell of her blood, he could no longer close his eyes to the truth. Marissa was dead. And he had not been able to prevent it.
Ryan was surprised when his arrival in the kitchen was not directly followed by an onslaught of questions and well meaning offers of help. In fact, none of the Cohens seemed to be in there. He was getting ready to pour himself a cup of coffee- no cereal today- when he heard the front door open. Moments later, Kirsten and Sandy came in, each of them carrying bags of food.
"Ryan, honey, you’re up!" Kirsten had obviously been caught of guard, as she had not yet been able to turn her voice into the quiet hush it had been the day before. Ryan nodded at both of them, trying to ignore the flash of worry I their eyes when they got a look at his tired face. Amazingly, they did not send him back to bed right away. Sandy merely looked at him compassionately and asked: "Couldn’t sleep, huh? I’m sorry, kid." Ryan really wished people would stop apologising to him. He was not the one who had fallen of a cliff.
Ryan would have preferred to just have a fast, quit breakfast and to then return to the guestroom, but he knew that was not going to happen. He sat down on his usual stool by the counter and looked at his foster parents expectantly. Best to get it over with now.
"Ryan, I’m not going to ask you how you are doing, because there is no way you can be fine at the moment. What I am going to ask is if there is anything we can do for you. Whatever you need, Ryan."
"I know, I mean Kirsten already told me that yesterday. But really, I don’t need anything. But, if you don’t want to ask me anything, I do have some questions."
They looked at him expectantly and he had to gather his strength to continue. He needed to know he needed to know what was going to happen now. Only that way could he figure out what he had to do, what was expected of him. Ryan forced himself to meet their questioning gazes.
"When will the funeral be?" It was a simple question, that’s why he choose to start like this. He wasn’t sure he would have the strength to ask later.
Kirsten looked at Sandy, clearly uncomfortable. But she turns back to him and answers. "Tomorrow. There will be a joined memorial service for both of them first and then the funeral services will be held independently."
"Both of them?" Ryan didn’t understand.
If he had thought they looked uncomfortable before, it was no comparison to what they looked like now. Sandy carefully cleared his throat. "Ryan, don’t you remember? Johnny was up there with Marissa, he also…"
He doesn’t continue, silenced by the flash of remembrance in Ryan’s eyes. The boy lowers his gaze to the ground, breathing shallowly. How could he have just forgotten about Johnny? He was ashamed to realise that he had not spared the other boy a thought since the moment he had found Marissa. He hadn’t even tried to help him. What if…
"Ryan?" Kirsten interrupted his train of thought. "Sweetie, are you ok?" She took his hands carefully and he realised that he was shaking. The roaring in his ears was caused by his hyperventilating, too fast, trying to gulp down air to fight the feeling of not being able to breathe. He met Kirsten’s eyes; concentrated on the concern he saw in them and forced himself to calm down. "I forgot." he admitted, ashamed by the fact but to out of it to cover up the truth.
A hand was placed on his back, hesitantly as if asking for permission to touch him. "That’s ok, kid" comes Sandy’s deep voice from behind him "It’s absolutely ok, don’t worry about that."
Ryan just nodded, lowering his gaze once more and taking a sip of his coffee. He would not ask, even though a part of him desperately wanted to know. If I had helped him, would he have made it? He wouldn’t ask, because the part that wanted to know was not as strong as the part that was afraid that the answer would be yes.
He feels knew without even looking at them that Sandy and Kirsten were getting ready for more talking, and suddenly he couldn’t stand the thought. The thoughts repeating over and over in his head were to loud, roaring through his mind and making it impossible to concentrate on anything else. He needed to get out of there. But he didn’t want to go back to the guestroom, not after spending the better part of the past night staring at the ceiling.
"Sandy, Kirsten? I think I could use some fresh air. Would it be ok if I went for a walk?" He was surprised how calm his voice sounded. He certainly didn’t feel that way.
"Honey, I don’t like the thought of you being alone right now. How about you wait a minute and then Sandy and will come with you." The offer was well meaning, but how was he supposed to bring order to the chaos of his brain when the Cohens were adding more disorder every time they said something.
"Thanks, but I’d rather go alone." He saw the scepticism in Sandy’s eyes and hurried on "I promise I won’t go far. Just walk down the beach a bit." Sandy’s eyes gave him away, Ryan knew that he was giving in when he saw his reaction to the mention of the beach. His foster father understood the calming effect of being alone with the ocean; his lectures about it were what had caused Ryan to seek out its comfort in the first place.
"Take your mobile with you, ok? If there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to call."
Ryan was about to insist that he wasn’t sick and wouldn’t need to call them for help, but he could see that Kirsten was getting ready to protest Against his going at all, so he just nodded, grabbed the phone from the counter- how had it gotten there anyway? - and left the kitchen through the patio doors.
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Ryan hadn’t walked far, only far enough to no longer see the Cohens house, before sat down on the sand. He was quickly developing a headache, yet the voices in his head still did not want to quiet down.
If he had helped Johnny, would he have survived? And right after that question came the next one, just as potentially dangerous. Had he done everything he could to help Marissa? Had there been anything he could have done to save her? He wasn’t a doctor, he had done what he could, but it had obviously not been enough. Was Marissa dead because he hadn’t really known what to do?
He sat on the sand, staring at the ocean without actually seeing it. His hands had started to shake again, but he didn’t even notice. Ryan had no idea how long he had been sitting there; repeating the same questions to himself when a new thought entered his mind.
What if Marissa hadn’t been on the cliff at all? What if he had stuck with his plan and went up there himself? Wasn’t that what he had been supposed to do, wasn’t that why Kaitlin had called him for help in the first place. He remembered the panic in her voice when she had called him, remembered her question when he had arrived by her side: "Ryan? What are you doing down here? Why aren't you up there with Johnny, you're supposed to stop him." He had been supposed to stop Johnny. Had he done that, Johnny would still be alive and Marissa would never have come near that cliff. Had he done what he was supposed to do, no one would have died. He felt the nausea returning.
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When Ryan returned to the Cohens’ house, he was not sure how much time had passed. He had gotten sick several times at the beach, even though there was nothing but bile left inside him. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get rid of the taste. The sight of Seth and Summer sitting in the den made him stop.
"Chino, hey." He didn’t think he had ever heard Seth’s girlfriend this subdued. Nor did he remember ever seeing her this dishevled. Her eyes were red rimmed, tear tracks on her cheeks leaving no question to the cause. Her hair was kept out of her face in a messy pony tail and she didn’t appear to be wearing make-up. Her tiny body seemed to drown in what had to be one of Sandy’s college sweaters.
Upon his arrival, she disentangled herself from Seth’s protective embrace and came over to him, hugging him without any warning. She burrowed her face in his shirt and through her sniffing he could hear a barely audible "This is so horrible!" He simply nodded in agreement. She was the first one who hadn’t told him she was sorry.
Seth came up to him next, eyeing him cautiously as if trying to judge his state of mind. Apparently, his face was for once not hiding his feelings very well, as his eyes were soon shadowed by concern. Seth not knowing what to say was not something Ryan was used to, but right now his best friend seemed to search for the right words without any success. In the end, the other boy settled for an awkward pat on his back. He didn’t say "sorry" either. Seth knew how much he hated that word.
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They had all sat down on the couch in the den, not knowing what to say but forced to stay together due to Summers sudden need for physical contact, as well as an inexplicable urge not to let go off each other.
They didn’t really talk, even Seth being at a loss for words, and instead just staring out the window. Summer started to cry several times and Ryan and Seth took turns handing her tissues from box on the coffee table. It felt slightly surreal, sitting there like that, but then Ryan thought that everything had felt surreal since he had seen Marissa fall.
Ryan had no idea how much time had passed like that when Summer coughed and then started to speak. "I feel like I am such a horrible person." He looked at her questioningly, but Seth had apparently heard this before, because he was fast to tell her "You’re not. You are in pain and it is normal to be angry." Summer didn’t seem to allow herself of the hook.
"But being mad at someone who is dead? Johnny is dead, Cohen, and I can’t feel sorry for him. All I can feel is mad because he made her fall, too. And I know it wasn’t on purpose, I know it was a horrible accident, but she was my best friend and she is dead because of him."
Ryan could feel himself tensing up as the roaring in his head that had quieted down a little while they had been sitting there gained in volume again. "She is dead because of him." It was true that she wouldn’t have fallen if it hadn’t been for Johnny. But it was also true that she wouldn’t even have been up there if he had insisted on going himself. "I’m sorry" he said to Summer. And unlike the others, he really had something to apologise for.
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